How to Customize the Desktop Background in Windows 7 & Windows 8

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Some people might not yet have discovered that Microsoft supplies a selection of colorful wallpapers with its operating systems, and thus they never experiment with changing the standard background. I've always picked something other than the default background, so in this article I will talk about how that's done. In both Windows 7 and Windows 8, it's a quick and straightforward process. I'll also talk about ways to go beyond what's supplied by Windows or already on your computer.

The Basics About Themes in Windows 7 & Windows 8

Microsoft puts together collections of backgrounds, window colors, sounds and screen savers into what they've called themes. Choosing one of those is a great way to get started with customizing your Desktop. Each theme has a selection of wallpapers to choose from. You can keep just one, or let them play like a slideshow. The following illustrations are from my computers; yours will look slightly different depending on what options you've chosen, but the procedure will be the same in any case.

In both Windows 7 and Windows 8, right-click anywhere on the Desktop to begin. The right-click menu looks different in the two operating systems, and your menu will very likely look different from mine depending on what you have installed, but the Personalize choice is there on both.

The Personalize window is slightly different in Windows 7 and Windows 8. Windows 7 has Aero themes in addition to the standard themes, and you can change your account picture from this window as well.

Other than that, though, the two systems work exactly the same way.

Click on a theme that appeals to you, and Windows will change your wallpapers, the screen colors, sounds and the screensaver to those included in that theme. Below, I've chosen the Characters Aero theme in Windows 7.

And here is the Flowers theme in Windows 8. Note how the window borders have changed color to match the theme.

Play around with the available choices as much as you like. If none of the built-in themes pleases you, Microsoft has an outstanding collection here. We also have a great series of unique themes and interviews, here. If you are looking just for good images, you can try another favorite of mine: NASA Image of the Day Gallery.

NOTE: By the way, I don't recommend using any of the high contrast themes unless you really need them, because you are having sight issues. They are eye-bogglingly ugly.

How to Use Your Own Wallpapers for the Desktop Background

But what if none of the pre-made themes appeals to you? You can easily choose an image on your hard drive as your wallpaper.

In Windows 7, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the image you'd like to use as wallpaper. (Can you find my cat Jenny Linsky in this photo?) Right-click on your image, and choose Set as desktop background and you're done.

In Windows 8, use File Explorer to navigate to your image, and right-click. The menu looks slightly different, but Set as desktop background is the same. Click and you've got it.

But what if you don't want just one image? What if you want to have your own slideshow with multiple images from a folder? That's just as easy to do, and it works the same way in Windows 7 and Windows 8.

In the Personalize window, click Desktop background. This will take you to the Desktop background window, showing your current background. Here is the Windows 8 version, which shows you that I'm using a high res photo of Mercury from the NASA image collection as my current background.

There's a drop-down menu named Picture location that shows you the standard Windows locations for appropriate images.

If none of those have what you want, click Browse and navigate to another folder of your choice (this is the Windows 7 version—I have more images to choose from there).

NOTE: you can only use one folder. If no folder on your computer has the images you want, you'll need to create a folder with selected images just for this purpose.

Select the images you want for your slideshow by clicking in the upper left corner of each thumbnail.

Click the Save Changes button, and let your slideshow play through to check the position of your images. Chances are good that one or more of them won't look quite right on your screen.

Wallpapers - How to Customize their Position & Change Interval

Right-click and go back to Personalize, and then click Desktop Background again. Then click on the Picture Position drop-down list, which will show you your options: Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, and Center.

Experimentation is the best way to decide which of those options works best. Here's what happens:

Fill will enlarge or reduce your images so that your Desktop space is filled. The images will be stretched or cropped to make this happen.

Fit will make your images as large as possible to fit in the space. They won't be distorted or cropped.

Stretch will stretch or squash your image to the same dimensions as your screen. If your monitor size doesn't match the size of the image well, this can look really ugly.

Tile will put your image on the screen multiple times, filling up the space, but it may or may not fit the images into the space.

Center will put your image in the center of the screen. You may have one small image in the center of a big blank space, or you may have just the center part of a big image.

If it turns out that your image doesn't fill the screen properly, you can click on Change background color, and find a color that coordinates with your image to fill up the rest of the screen. Unfortunately this feature is available only in Windows 7 and not in Windows 8.

By default, the images you've chosen will become a slideshow that will change at whatever time interval you wish. Use the Change picture every list and choose the time span you want. If you want the images to play in random order click the box marked Shuffle.

When done making your changes, don't forget to click Save changes.

NOTE: If you have not selected any images in the folder or you selected just one image, the time interval dropdown and the Shuffle box will be greyed out.

Conclusion

There's no reason to use the same old boring wallpaper that everyone else has. Changing it to suit your own preferences is quick and straightforward, and it's easy to change back to what you had if none of the new images or themes is to your liking. I recommend experimenting with this feature in either operating system. I predict you'll like what you get.

Have you found a good collection of public domain images that would make good wallpaper? Please share it in the comments.

Comments

by Helperon 11/12/2009 - 05:52

To change the desktop background in windows 7 for HP you need to fix it,
it is default in stretch mode , if you want to change you have to download SoftPaq SP45575 "Wallpaper Picture Position Enabler" and fix it, its only for specific Presario and desktops
you can download it from here

If you have a "netbook" with "Windows 7 Starter," there are some things you can change, but apparently you can't change the desktop background using Windows 7 Starter Edition. That might be why you can't find the control panel you're looking for?

I know of a way to have 2 monitors and have different wallpapers for each monitor. Is it possible to do the same with Windows 7 Pro 64bit ? The method used for win XP cannot be used for Win7 Pro, as it has different Display properties.

XP allows (through the web tab) multiple photos to be displayed at the same time on the desktop (not a slideshow). It also allows those photos to be resized and moved to any position on the desktop. Is there any way to do the same in 7?

I agree! With the popularity of high pixel count cameras, most of my photos are very large. And without exception, they all look crappy when "stretched" or "fit" using the standard controls. What is missing is the ability to manually size and position a photo (or photo frame) wherever I want on the screen. This would also help when I switch from mobile to my desktop monitor which is a different size.

Does anyone know of a way to do this or of some 3rd party software?

Microsoft missed the chance to combine one of the best features of Windows XP with Windows 7 on this one.

There's no Personalize when I do the right-click. That is why I can't change my desktop background. I tried to find something like "Appearance and Personalization" in Control Panel but "There is no result". It will automatically open this link. What should I do? The Saleman just installed Win 7 for me today.

About your request for desktop background sites... http://www.desktoppictures.com/ has lots of very high-resolution images (beautiful Florida beaches, scenic pictures, abstract photos...) to fit even the biggest screens, and with new Windows 7 features, even the 3600x2400 (the biggest print resolution offered) could be sized to look good on screens bigger than 2560x1600 (the biggest wallpaper resolution offered). The new options make it unnecessary to match your screen resolution exactly, because you can essentially crop, reformat and resize (with excellent built-in photo resampling software) using just the desktop background control panel settings.